Date Awarded

2024

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (M.A.)

Department

Anthropology

Advisor

Danielle Moretti-Langholtz

Committee Member

Danielle Moretti-Langholtz

Committee Member

Martin Gallivan

Committee Member

Buck Woodard

Abstract

As a visual testament to the complexity of ancient peoples, rock markings have long captivated the public imagination. More recently, the archaeological field has witnessed a renaissance in rock marking scholarship as researchers increasingly recognize both the continued importance of these features to descendant communities and their potential to inform our understandings of antiquity. In the semiotic content of petroglyphs and pictographs, many archaeologists see an opportunity to access otherwise irretrievable details of past belief systems. Yet, attempts to engage with this content are complicated by the immense challenge researchers face in delineating the boundaries and details of rock markings. Sketches, charcoal rubbings, and – since the advent of photography – pictures of chalk-marked stones comprise just a few of the subjective recording methods applied to documenting these features. As a result, entirely different drawings often exist for the same petroglyphs, and from their widely divergent starting points scholars have unsurprisingly arrived at antipodal interpretations. In the last couple decades, archaeologists have brought new technology to bear on this subject. Increasingly prevalent in the documentation of rock markings are three-dimensional recording techniques such as digital photogrammetry, LiDAR, and structured-light scanning. Despite a growing body of 3D spatial data, we still lack a comprehensive and objective methodology for making appropriate use of this new class of information. This study presents new techniques for leveraging the data potential of 3D petroglyph scans in the creation of objective visualizations of rock markings. It outlines and then demonstrates a process of uniform manipulations performed on 3D petroglyph data in CloudCompare, a free 3D modelling software, for the purpose of achieving improved visual contrast of rock carvings. It also evaluates some existing methods and tools for colorizing images on stone. The methodology offered here can contribute significantly to petroglyph research as it fulfills the need for a systematic route to increasing glyph clarity, yet does so in a more objective manner than traditional segmentation techniques. In this role, it has the capacity to make visible previously unidentified markings. The use of this process on a dataset primarily from the Eastern United States facilitated the discovery of unrecognized petroglyphs at known petroglyph sites. Moreover, this process may prove applicable to other archaeological problems, such as reading eroded gravestones.

DOI

https://dx.doi.org/10.21220/s2-etsv-sc74

Rights

© The Author

Download

Share Feedback

Share

COinS